School Grants for College Students

Grants are monetary gifts given to college students by the federal government, by state governments, by schools, or by private organizations to help pay tuition. When you plan your college years, you’ll discover financing your education is a complex enterprise, requiring a great deal of paperwork in terms of applications for assistance.

You’ll begin by filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and applying for two types of available gift aid, grants and scholarships. The FAFSA is a form used to determine your eligibility for many types of financial aid, both because it’s used by the federal government and because it collects a great deal of information about the financial circumstances of your family, which is necessary for making awards based on need.

Grants Versus Scholarships

There is no clear distinction between grants and scholarships. Both are gifts of money that must be used for college expenses, neither requires repayment (with a few exceptions), and both require you to meet certain criteria to qualify (often financial need, academic achievement, residing or attending school in certain locations, or studying a particular subject).

Most importantly, both are limited: everyone who qualifies for a grant or scholarship does not receive one, because of funding limits. Grants are usually distributed in larger numbers, as awards to a class of people who fit a specific definition (say, children of military personnel killed in action who live in a certain state). Most scholarship descriptions look something like this, as an example: “one to two annual awards of between $2,000 and $5,000 for outstanding American history majors who participate in History Department activities.”

Best-Known Federal Grants

The following grants are probably the ones most widely known, and they’re all excellent examples of how grants are defined and how they work.

Need-Based: Pell and Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants

The Pell Grant is a very popular need-based grant available through the federal government. Pells usually go to undergraduates who have not yet earned a degree, with one exception: if you’re seeking training as a teacher and have a degree, you may still be eligible. There is a maximum amount (currently $5,550) that often changes, but there are several factors used to determine how much you’ll receive: financial need, school costs, number of courses taken, and duration of attendance.

The Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (FSEOG) is intended to help undergraduates who have severe financial need, and it supplements the Pell. Only Pell recipients are eligible for the FSEOG, and those who apply receive consideration in order of need. The FSEOG varies based on your circumstances, from $100 to $4,000 each year, and it is distributed through the schools.

Participating schools receive a set amount of annual FSEOG funding, and once the funding has been exhausted the remaining applicants must wait until the next cycle to apply again. The Pell, in contrast, is guaranteed for all eligible applicants.

Merit-Based: Fulbright Grant

The Fulbright epitomizes the prestigious grants, sending highly accomplished Americans abroad as national representatives to study and interact with their counterparts in other countries. You can complete research and teach English during your stay, usually for one academic year.

If you intend to study a language considered vital to national security interests, you may be eligible for a supplemental Critical Language Enhancement Award (CLEA) to pay for several months of concentrated language instruction. The CLEA is designed to develop your fluency so you can use the language in future studies or in your career.

Special Purpose: Grants From the National Institutes of Health

The Office of Extramural Research (OER) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the agency responsible for administering some of NIH’s grant funding. OER manages most of NIH’s multi-billion dollar budget for biomedical research, and if you are a student at a health professional school participating in a small academic research project (up to $300,000 in total cost), it may have been underwritten by NIH as part of the NIH Academic Research Enhancement Award (AREA) Program.

One of NIH’s goals in establishing the AREA program was to familiarize students with solid research techniques and provide the best training possible for the next generation of scientists.

Special Population: Iraq and Afghanistan Service Grant

The Iraq and Afghanistan Service Grant is reserved for children of military service members who died as a result of serving in Iraq or Afghanistan after September 11, 2001. Additional criteria include these stipulations:

• At the time your parent died, you were under 24 years old or attending college at least part-time.
• Your family makes too much money for you to receive a Pell grant for which you would otherwise qualify. The amount of your Expected Family Contribution is what will be considered, and it is calculated from the information supplied on your FAFSA.

The Iraq and Afghanistan Service grant has the same upper limit as the Pell grant.